


Full House

by HungryLibrary



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, First posted to Tumblr, Fluff, Lots of Cats, Weiss, and Yang, floating in the background we have, some sort of quiet au, with cats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-27 06:07:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2681933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HungryLibrary/pseuds/HungryLibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blake and Ruby move into their new home, and then half the cats in the city move in with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Full House

The first stray wanders in before Blake has even finished unpacking.

An old and stately calico female, she inspects various aspects of the house before settling on a pile of Ruby’s shop-stained laundry and becomes part of the family almost at once.

-

“We’ll call her Queen.” Ruby says with a grin as the feline gives them the most haughty of looks from the top of the fridge. “She’d probably have our heads if we named her anything else.”

“You don’t mind having a cat?”

“Nope! She’s super cute!” Blake watches as Ruby twists her fingers together, obviously itching to pet the cat and aware of just how unwelcome that would be.

“So are you…” Blake murmurs, leaning over to give her girlfriend a kiss and inspire a blush.

-

The new cat brings some new changes.

There’s one less cushion available when they watch movies and one more set of hungry eyes when dinner is served. Fur is everywhere. Chair legs start showing a tendency for splinters and Weiss looks as horrified upon her visit as Yang does obviously delighted.

Blake can’t stand pet shops so Ruby picks out the scratching posts, toys, and food supplies on her own. She takes hours to choose, but even though her girlfriend is pleased with the results the calico only ever bothers with the food dish and litter box.

Proud and standoffish as her name, their new cat never seems interested in cuddling unless a computer is involved, which means flopping down on Blake’s arm just when the aspiring writing is trying to ply her trade.

Most of her writing is done during the main part of the day while Ruby is at work in the shop and the others are likewise busy. Blake is used to it feeling a bit lonely. Now she smiles, watching a tail twitch across the screen, flicking at her words as a soft purr rumbles up her captive right arm.

Not long after this Ruby bounds up the front steps in her oil-smeared shop suit and walks in to find a black kitten perched on Blake’s shoulder.

-

“So…” She’s already somewhat fallen for the fluff ball and can’t quite keep a hint of nervousness from her voice. “…How do you feel about  _two_  cats?”

Ruby’s answer is an intelligible squeal of delight.

She swoops into the cuddle the kitten in her hands and doesn’t set her down for the next two hours.

-

They name her Belle…. and then quickly nick-name her Beast.

In the morning she jumps into cereal-filled bowls. During the day she bounces on Queen until the old cat goes tearing around the house trying to escape, and evening finds her clawing up their clothes for the best snuggle positions. She doesn’t seem to sleep. Ruby spends a week leaping out of bed every hour until she gets used to the thumps and scratchings that are always echoing up the stairs.

Once Belle the Beast even manages to sneak a ride to Ruby’s work, nearly giving her humans a heart attack- but at least someone appreciates the cat toys now.  

Weiss thinks Ruby is insane to put up with it. Yang, a dog person to the core, thinks it’s great and volunteers Weiss to house sit for them whenever they need a cat-free vacation.

Ruby rolls her eyes at both of their antics… until the third, fourth, and fifth cats appear.

They get the highly appropriate names of Bear, Goldilocks, and Snow White.

Bear is huge and never fails to come home in tatters from his latest fight. Ruby and Blake take turns pinning him in a towel so they can bandage his blood-smeared hide.

-

“We can’t even count him as another cat, Blake. He's like this dragon in the body of a miniature mountain lion!”

Blake can only sigh at the sight of the bloody and happily purring bundle in Ruby’s arms.

“I’ll go get the gauze…”

-

Goldilocks won’t eat normal cat food. They have to prepare her meals separately and guard her while she eats or the fluffy ginger would happily starve. She also likes sleeping in bed with them,  _right_  between them.

-

Ruby’s fingers are threading through her hair. Under the sheets their legs are tangling together and Blake has one hand on Ruby’s waist, tracing slow circles across burning skin as her other hand guides them into a kiss-

Until a cloud of ginger fur blocks her view.

“Gold!” Ruby splutters as they both jerk back. “Hey, um, can’t you see we’re kinda busy here?”

The fiend rumbles smugly in response.

Ruby laughs and tickles her ears, clearly ready to settle in for a good petting. The alternative is shooing Goldilocks away, which always ended in a few days’ worth of careful apology brushings before the puny humans could be forgive for their offence.  

Blake doesn’t say a word. Her heart is pounding in her ears from a day of working on one of her more adult manuscripts- she had barely managed to wait for Ruby to get home- she was  _not_  going to lose out to a feline now.

So she scoops up the cat and almost tosses her out the bedroom door before closing and locking it for good measure. Consequences be damned.

Ruby is giggling when she makes it back to the bed. She might still think it’s hilarious a minute or two later, but at least by then she’s too breathless to laugh out loud.

-

And Snow White, sleek and beautiful, does nothing but nap and preen in all the most irritating places. Like the bathroom sink while Blake is trying to brush her teeth, or the laundry basket right as Ruby moves to dump it in the washer.

Interrupting her means being hissed and swatted at- a fact Ruby’s scratched up hands can attest to.

-

“Whoa… what happened to you? Did you have an accident in the shop?”

Yang is staring at Ruby’s bandaged hands. So is a little kid in the booth across from them- Blake reaches under the table to give her drooping girlfriend a bracing pat on the knee.

“I was trying to dry my hands.” Ruby says with a sigh.

There’s a pause where Yang waits to hear the rest of it, but there really isn’t all that much else to the story than that. Eventually an encouraging nudge in the shoulder gets one more word out of Ruby.

“Cat.”

“Ohhh…” Yang nods and winces in sympathy as their orders arrive. “Well, it looks like she got you something  _calwful_  this time-“

Ruby tries to throw a fry at Yang but her wrappings-stiff fingers can’t grip properly and the projectile doesn't even leave her plate.

Blake hurries to settle the matter of pouring Ruby’s ketchup and opening her chip bag before they have a repeat of that morning’s breakfast mess...

-

The house goes from relatively quiet and empty to full of cats in under a month. Even Yang is a little taken aback on her next visit.

She is given a chair while Ruby sits on the floor and Blake balances on the couch arm, every other available seat is covered in cat. Neither of her hosts notice anything odd about this until she points it out.

-

“I know I joke about it a lot, but you guys really do have a heck of a lot of cats in one small house! Are you just going to keep taking in anything that wanders through you’re front door?”

Blake wishes they could. She was a stray once before and quite apart from her love of cats, she feels better knowing they have a home now.

But she isn't the only one who lives here.

Ruby has gone from a pet-less single life to sharing living space with not just another person, but a small  _army_  of animals that needed to be cleaned up after and chased down and which left fur on all her clothes. It’s a miracle she let it go this far.

“I was thinking about that, actually.” Hums Ruby as one hand strokes Bear’s back while the other kept Beast at bay. “These guys are getting kinda expensive for us even now I’m back to working full time, so-“

Blake feels herself freeze on her perch.

She loves Ruby, she really does, but there is going to be a world-shaking argument if she tries to evict one of their strays.

“- I was thinking we could apply at the local shelter to be a foster home or something. That way they could help us find homes for any new cats who stroll in, and the cost of taking care of them would be mostly taken care of by charity donations and stuff.”

Craning around, Ruby offered Blake a sheepish smile.  

“Uh, I had Weiss look that up for me almost a week ago and then kinda forgot… What do you think?”

_I think I used up all my luck just finding you._ Blake thinks.

“It sounds great.” She says instead, because Yang it there and it’s bad enough that she sees Blake’s eyes get misty and her smile go all sappy- She doesn't need to give Ruby’s sister even more of a reason to tease them…

Oh screw it.

“It sounds  _perfect_.” Blake amends, leaning down to press a kiss on her girlfriend’s unruly hair. “Just like you.”

Yang wolf-whistles as Ruby blushes.

The distraction makes Ruby’s hand falter enough for Beast to slip past- then everything is chaos as Bear’s yowl starts off a domino effect of panicking cats. And somehow that also manages to be ‘purrfect’.


End file.
